


welcome home

by sylvansalvia



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, post 159 pre 160
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22204156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylvansalvia/pseuds/sylvansalvia
Summary: Jon called the ambulance, just like she asked. Then he called Georgie.“Calling her just seemed like the right thing to do,” he says much later, from a telephone booth in Scotland. “I suppose it was a hunch. I assumed you didn’t want me at the hospital, and someone had to be there.”Melanie laughs. She walks her hand over the table until it hits warm ceramic, and she picks up her mug. “You were probably right about that. I mean. Thanks.”“One of my few good decisions,” Jon says drily.
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King
Comments: 10
Kudos: 105





	welcome home

Melanie doesn’t remember quitting the Institute very well. Only bits and pieces remain in her memory. Lights flashed. An ambulance wailed shrilly. Her eyes and her hands suddenly burned with heat. Shock is a hell of a drug, apparently.

Jon called the ambulance, just like she asked. Then he called Georgie. The next thing Melanie remembers with any clarity is Georgie’s voice. It was laced with panic, stumbling over syllables. Georgie called her name, twice, and through the haze, Melanie felt her squeeze her hand.

“Calling her just seemed like the right thing to do,” Jon says much later, from a telephone booth in Scotland. “I suppose it was a hunch. I assumed you didn’t want _me_ at the hospital, and someone had to be there.”

Melanie laughs. She walks her hand over the table until it hits warm ceramic, and she picks up her mug. “You were probably right about that. I mean. Thanks.”

“One of my few good decisions,” Jon says drily.

“Probably your only one.”

Jon chuckles. “You’re okay, though,” he says softly. “Right?”

“I gouged my own eyes out, Jon.”

“Well, aside from that, then.”

“Like I told you earlier, I’m— I’m doing better. It hurts. But it’s quiet here, and not like the Institute was quiet. Nothing’s watching. It’s peaceful.”

“Except for the Admiral.”

“Except for the Admiral, yeah. He’s a force of chaos. Can’t be contained. He’s probably knocking over Georgie’s coffee as we speak.”

Melanie can hear the smile in Jon’s voice. “I’m glad they’re letting you stay there,” he says.

“Yeah.” She exhales slowly, surprised to find her throat closing up. “Yeah, me too.”

There, in Georgie’s flat, she can hear the aging floorboards creak under the Admiral’s paws and ice tremble in a glass of water left on a windowsill. Soon Georgie herself will be home, and Melanie will be able to hear her voice. After the hospital, the next few days were a blur of desperate negotiations and intense relief. Now, a sense of freedom washes over her with every breath she takes. She doesn’t have to be scared. She doesn’t have to be angry. She doesn’t have to make the long chain of choices that have been keeping Jon awake at night since his heart started beating again. Melanie made one choice, and now she’s free from all the rest.

Her world is a little unfamiliar now. Georgie’s flat has developed sharp edges in unexpected places. Coffee table. Countertop. Potted snake plant. Everything is either closer or more distant than she expects. She bumps into things a lot. Still, that’s ordinary. There’s no bone-deep cosmic horror in barking her shins on Georgie’s coffee table. Georgie is there too, with her kind voice and soft hands, helping her remap the apartment’s familiar territory. The Admiral is developing the habit of meowing whenever she comes too close, just to let her know he’s there.

A few days ago, Melanie stood in front of the couch, feeling her feet sink into the carpet. She remembers feeling afloat in a sea of blank space, grounded only by the texture of the carpet and the familiar sounds of the street outside. She just stood there, with her hands hanging limply at her sides. Georgie was saying something kind, like “you need some rest” or “let’s get you to bed.”

“Sorry,” Melanie said. Her voice sounded vague and slurred. “You don’t have to do this.”

She felt Georgie reach up and brush a limp strand of hair from her forehead, so gently that her heart broke a little. “Oh, darling.”

“You don’t have to take care of me.” It was a reflex, a sentence formed from muscle memory alone, as if some ghost of Melanie’s past self has crawled past the shock and up her throat. “You signed up for a girlfriend, not— not this.”

“Melanie,” Georgie said, “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

Melanie took a shaky breath. A little of the tension fell from her shoulders. She jumped slightly as Georgie cupped her face in her hands. Her thumbs rested just below the bandages. Melanie felt something in her start to heal, shattered pieces coming together and reigniting like a star being born from clouds and dust. She felt like her heart had started to beat again, like she had just taken her first breath in months.

“I’m making a choice, because I love you,” Georgie said. “I’m not afraid. I’m not overburdened.”

Melanie felt light. “What was that first part, again?”

Georgie leaned forward and kissed her. Somewhere, Melanie felt, a supernova was bursting radiantly into light and color at that precise moment. Particles streamed across the galaxies. Planets revolved a little faster in their orbits. Georgie’s lips were soft, and Melanie was certain that she had never been kissed so gently.

“I love you,” Georgie said again, and guided her slowly towards the bed.

The next morning, ridiculously, Melanie felt a pang of panic as she woke up and realized she couldn’t see. Sensations slowly faded in as she remembered what happened in the Institute. Her eye sockets hurt like hell, but she could feel the warm weight of a down comforter across her shoulders. Next to her, Georgie sighed as she turned over in her sleep. Melanie sat up, stretching, and felt her hair fall softly over her face. She could feel the heat of sunlight spreading across her shoulder.

Georgie groaned. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know.”

Sheets rustled as Georgie checked her phone. “Ugh. I should get up.”

Melanie reached out into the unknown to find the corner of Georgie’s bedside table so that she would not bump into it as she tried to get up. Her hand brushed against a lampshade. Relearning the geography of the room was easy. Lamp to table. Table to creaking floorboard. Georgie’s footsteps tapped across the room. She brushed a lock of hair from Melanie’s face. Then she took her hand, and Melanie smiled.

“I’ll make breakfast,” Georgie said.

“No, really,” Jon says, voice crackling down the telephone line. “You’re sure your— your wounds aren’t, I don’t know, infected or something? Book repair awls aren’t exactly— they’re— they’re not really sanitary—”

Melanie sighs. It’s a little annoying to be fussed over, but Jon sounds different now that Martin is back. Calmer, somehow. More concerned than desperate.

“I’m fine, Jon,” she says, half-laughing and exasperated. “I’m going to be fine.”

In that moment, those words feel incredibly true. They both pause, because nothing has been fine for what feels like forever, and the possibility that they will continue to be fine hits hard.

“I’m going to be fine,” Melanie repeats, and she can hear Jon’s smile in the static that rushes down the line.

**Author's Note:**

> ... and then the apocalypse happens and no one is fine but we're just going to ignore that for now


End file.
